After 18 months of early access, Voidborn has finally reached 1.0!
This update completes the full run of the game, including all main areas and bosses, and aims to set a polished and consistent quality standard all the way from the main menu to the end credits.
Thank you so much to everyone who has supported Voidborn during it's Early Access period. As a solo developer on this game, creating it has been very tough at times, but mostly a lot of fun. I am very proud of what I have been able to achieve with this game, and I hope you will enjoy playing it as much as I enjoyed developing it.
Voidborn 1.0 Trailer
Ascend The Black Castle
The final location of the game blends together interior- and exterior levels of the castle in a pseudo-randomized order with seamless level transitions, all in the pursuit of creating an exciting climax to the voidborn's quest, and putting all the player's skills to the test.
New introduction levels
Blending into the Dungeons of Decay map pool, these levels act as a new introduction to the game, and do a much better job of getting the player familiar with the fundamental gameplay mechanics.
Controller support
Voidborn now features full controller support for Xbox controllers. This was a feature that was promised much sooner than delivered on, and I apologize for that. The reason being is that I simply underestimated just how extensive of a feature this was to implement, especially since the UI was not designed to be able to be used with a controller which meant I had to make a few compromises in the implementation.
Voidborn should be fully playable now on Steamdeck, but I don't have one myself to test it on so I can't confirm, and it has not been officially verified by Steam, but I am working on that.
Trials of the Scarlet Curse
All difficulty modifiers for Trials of the Scarlet Curse have been added.
New weapon aspects
There are now 8 total weapon aspects, two for each weapon. I wanted each weapon to have three aspects, but unfortunately the ones that I had planned to add ended up being too ambitious to finish in time for this update. So maybe in the future?
Steam Achievements
Voidborn now has 24 Steam Achievements in ranging difficulty.
New music
Dungeons of Decay
The soundtrack for Dungeons of Decay was made by me over 3 years ago, and quite frankly, it does not hold up. So, this soundtrack has been replaced with a new banger created by Crisp.
The Black Castle
The final location in the game features two new music tracks also created by Crisp.
Go check out his other music: https://soundcloud.com/stillcrisp
New Amulets
These amulets can either be found or unlocked through Trials of the Scarlet Curse.
New item icons
All items in the game now have a unique illustration displayed in the inventory.
All illustrations for the game have been made by Huhrizon: https://www.instagram.com/huhrizon/
Many changes, improvements, and bug fixes have been made throughout the whole game. These are some of the major ones, please view the full patch notes at the bottom of this post for the complete list of changes.
The Shadowed City main gate
The main gate to The Shadowed City can now be opened to provide a shortcut. The lever to open the gate can be found somewhere inside the citadel.
Ultimate rework
The Ultimate has been reworked. Instead of slowly charging up over time, the player must now charge it by dealing damage to enemies. When the Ultimate is not being charged, its charge will slowly drain over time. This change has been made to promote more aggressive gameplay.
Improved levels
All levels in the game have received lighting and texture improvements to look, play- and perform better. This includes higher quality baked lighting, adjustments made to lighting to make the game easier on the eyes and improve visual clarity, and general performance improvements.
Balancing
Because this version now features the complete run, I have basically had to rebalance the entire game. This includes tweaking number of enemy encounters per location, enemy spawns, enemy damage, enemy health, weapon damage, balancing powerps, adjusting weapon unlock- and upgrade prices, etc. This has been a very tricky task but hopefully I've done a decent job, regardless I will continue to balance the game based on player feedback.
For full list of balancing changes please view the full patch notes at the bottom of this post.
A lot of the work that went into this update was making the game consistent throughout the entirety of it by bringing all of the gameplay systems to a standard that feels complete, both in terms of how the game plays, and how it affects me working with the game. This means going forward, making any changes or adding new content should be much easier to implement.
However, going forward my main focus will shift from Voidborn to a new project that I have been developing on the side since late 2023. But Voidborn will still continue to receive quality of life updates.
There are still more things that I want to add to the game in the future, but I cannot make any promises on when or even if that will happen as my next game will likely take up all of my game dev time.
But as it is now, I view 1.0 as the complete Voidborn experience, which is much bigger than I had first envisioned when I began developing the game in late 2021, and that is large thanks to those who have supported the game since before it was even released, and throughout Early Access, so once again big thanks to everyone who has supported Voidborn.
My new game will be announced very soon, so to stay updated please follow my socials :)
Contains spoilers for old content
New Additions
- Added the final area.
- Added controller support.
- Added new Amulets.
- Added new item icons for all items in the game.
- Added new weapon aspects.
- Added new introduction levels.
- Added new soundtrack for Dungeons of Decay.
- Added Tier II and Tier III to Trials of the Scarlet Curse.
- Added Steam achievements.
- Enabled Steam cloud saves.
- Added new shortcut between Bloodrain Valley and The Shadowed City.
Gameplay Changes
General Changes
- Reworked Ultimate.
- Removed charged melee.
- Added a new death screen.
- Increased invulnerability duration after taking damage.
- All lava now recoils the player instead of the player sinking into it.
- Exiting out of a run through the pause menu now saves meta progression.
Weapons
- Increased the time it takes for Chaosrepeater to overheat.
- Improved the consistency of weapons' rate of fire.
- Added new SFX for the Regal Blade.
Offerings
- Increased chance of 'Uncommon' offerings appearing by 25%.
- Increased chance of 'Rare' offerings appearing by 50%.
- Increased chance of 'Legendary' offerings appearing by 100%.
- Changed rarity on various Offerings.
- 'Scattering Void' offering on the Chaosrepeater now has a max distance and within-screen check.
- Reduced missiles per second on 'Missile Barrage' offering.
- Added 'Void' as a prerequisite on 'Missile Barrage' offering.
- Added additional levels to 'Soul Reaver' Void Fountain offering.
- Tweaked prices of Void Fountain offerings.
- Added purchase sound to Void Fountains.
Amulets
- Updated amulet icon for Deflector's Amulet.
- Updated amulet icon for Crushing Blow Amulet.
Enemies
General Changes
- Added weapon weakness modifier.
Left Eye of the Decay
- Increased resistance to Essence Disruptor.
- Decreased resistance to Doomscatter.
- Increased damage on all attacks.
Decay Demon
- Increased resistance to Essence Disruptor.
- Decreased resistance to Doomscatter.
- Decreased resistance to Chaosrepeater.
- Increased damage on all attacks.
Phantom
- Increased size of lantern hitbox.
- Decreased size of lantern hurtbox.
- Decreased resistance to Essence Disruptor.
Thumper & Bladecaster
- Decreased resistance to primary attacks by Regal Blade by 300%.
Trials of the Scarlet Curse
- Added Tier II modifiers.
- Added Tier III modifiers.
- Added new rewards.
- Moved Frenzy difficulty modifier to Tier II.
- Moved Increased Spawns difficulty modifier to Tier II.
Areas
Dungeons of Decay
- Reduced number of enemy encounter rooms in Dungeons of Decay.
Bloodrain Valley
- Reduced number of islands in Bloodrain Valley.
- Reduced difficulty of various enemy encounters.
- Added additional spawn points for enemies.
- Moved 'Deflector's Amulet' in Bloodrain Valley to a different location.
The Shadowed City
- Reduced unlock cost of various chests.
- Tweaked enemy spawns in various encounters.
- Removed the dark fog during the mini-boss fight.
- The final area boss can no longer be damaged during the intro.
- Moved 'Secret Key' in The Shadowed City to a different location.
- Replaced 'Queens Heart' item popup with a hint popup.
Dead Man's Passage
- Tweaked enemy encounters.
Tomb of the Sacrilegious
- Tweaked enemy encounters.
- Decreased level bounds.
Other Changes
- Improved baked lighting and textures in Bloodrain Valley and The Shadowed City.
- Improved the Void Spring room in Scoria Ruins.
- Removed 'encounters survived' from stats.
- Improved item popup.
- Improved inventory menu.
- Updated item and weapon descriptions.
- Made epilepsy notice skippable.
- Changed the popup text appearing when defeating a demigod.
- Removed boss title card from cutscenes.
- Improved pause menu.
- Decreased brightness of various enemy attacks.
- Removed socials from main menu.
- Removed early access popup when completing a run.
- Updated saving game symbol.
- Updated credits.
Fixes
- Potentially fixed an issue players have reported with weapons suddenly not being able to shoot for random durations of time.
- Fixed a soft lock in Tomb of the Sacrilegious caused by an enemy encounter activating the boss arena earlier than intended.
- Fixed player being able to fire and cycle weapons while in a menu.
- Fixed player being able to clip through certain kill boxes using Void Dash.
- Fixed projectiles not colliding with certain walls in various levels.
- Fixed spelling mistake in Vincent's dialogue.
- Fixed gravity not applying when clinging onto a wall by dashing into it.
- Fixed gaps in geometry in various levels.
- Fixed the final boss of The Shadowed City sometimes clipping into the ground when dashing.
- Fixed Void Fountains in the same level not refreshing their upgrade level.
- Fixed Void Fountain on the Lake Scoria ship not replenishing properly.
- Fixed 'Orbiting Fireballs' not being destroyed if Regal Blade is teleported back to the player.
- Fixed incorrect weapon trail on Lord Luther.
- Fixed offering pool not updating properly when entering Dead Man's Passage.